Two Moons
by phoenixyfriend
Summary: Some say that to understand a man, you must walk two moons in his shoes. However, living in the back of his head with no way out works just as well.
1. Wake Up

**A/N: This is going to be fairly short. At most, it'll be about ten chapters.**

**Oh, and the introduction was h*** to write. Typing out sensory overload like that was just… gah. I mean, have you ever realized just how much you _think?_** **It's a lot.**

**I once read an example of something similar in a webcomic called Institute of Metaphysics. If I remember correctly:**

**"If I say pink horse, something automatically comes to mind. Maybe it was just a flash of pink and something vaguely four-legged, but something was still there."  
**

**Now take that, and reverse it. Every bit of input you get triggers some sort of memory, some word, some feeling. It's disturbing. It's made even more difficult because most of your thoughts actually aren't put into words, they're flashes of emotion or pictures, or just a feeling that _is_ 'box,' but the word, or emotion, or picture never actually comes to mind. You just automatically know that thought as 'box.'**

**I even had to look up their stats to get their stamina levels right for the chakra comparison.**

**o.o.o.o.o**

He woke up confused.

He remembered a fight. A flash of white skin, black hair, yellow eyes… Orochimaru? Probably… Hand signs flashing, too fast to follow. Danna snarking at him to do his d*** job. Someone hitting him from behind. A flash of pain. A pulling sensation, right from where his largest mouth was. Right above his heart. Pulling in all directions.

Darkness…

Now where was he? It was dark, but not so dark that he couldn't see anything. There was a glow coming from the box he was in, purple, pale; long and wide enough for him to lie down in any direction, twice his height, and utterly bare and translucent, only barely crossing the line from transparent. He could see some ground outside his… box, but it only extended a few feet before the darkness took it over again. It looked like pressed earth, some grass sprouting here and there.

He looked down at himself, making a face as he realized that he was completely naked, not even having his scope, or his hair tie, or his ring. Even the nail polish was gone from his fingernails. His look turned to confusion as he also realized that there were no marks from his recent fight. The only marks he had were his old scars, the ones that would never fade, and the seal over his heart mouth.

Deidara looked around. Just where was he?

o.o.o.o.o

It had taken Deidara five minutes of trying to figure out where he was before he just gave up and sat down again. There was no scent, no sound other than his own breathing, and he really couldn't see anything more than a few feet away from the box. There was still the possibility of being caught by Orochimaru, but that snake would have been gloating at him by now. Not to mention, who would put dirt and grass inside? Darkness of this level wasn't natural, and if he'd been outside, he would have at least been able to see the stars; he could have even used them to pinpoint his location.

At that point, he decided to use a henge to at least cover up something. The clothes appeared before he even put his hands up into a sign. He looked down in astonishment, and then realized with a start that he couldn't feel his chakra. The clothes had appeared just as he'd decided to cover up, and he had lost no chakra doing it, because there wasn't any for him to use. If this was a genjutsu, he had no chance of breaking it.

What was going on?

He didn't feel anything. Well, it wasn't that he couldn't _feel_ anything, but he couldn't feel the kinds of things that were… conditional. There was no pain, no thirst, no hunger, and no fatigue. He could still feel something when he touched it, but he didn't feel any sort of _need_.

The world began to lighten.

For half an hour, Deidara just watched. He watched the disjointed images, the people he'd never met, the people he _had_ met, and experienced odd feelings along with everything he saw. The world outside his little box was a small vista of chaos, where an image or even an entire scene played out, and left a feeling he didn't recognize as his own while it was there. There were words, sometimes, though not often. There was a common feel to it all, and the various parts seemed to follow half a train of thought, but then break off, and something new would replace it. Everything was fuzzy, and subdued emotion was a larger part of what was going on than anything else.

Then the world darkened again.

Deidara didn't understand, though he did have some ideas now. What he'd seen had all had to do with Itachi, the b******. The images had been of a lot of things, but he'd seen at least one Konoha ANBU mask—each village had its own kind—and plenty of Uchiha. Kisame was in the 'show' far more than any other member of Akatsuki, and there were an inordinate number of scenes concerning a very young Uchiha that had said, at least once, "Itachi-nii-san." There was also a scene that involved dozens upon dozens of dead Uchiha and the same crying boy staring in horror while mouthing the word "Aniki." Obviously, this all had to do with Itachi.

Every image with an Uchiha had held a heavy dose of regret that was most definitely _not_ Deidara's, especially the ones that were about the kid that was probably Itachi's little brother. He'd never met these people, so why would he feel anything like that about them? At most, he'd hate them for having a Sharingan.

It wasn't that feeling these things _meant_ anything to him yet. It was just kind of confusing.

This had to do with Itachi, but what? Yes, Orochimaru had an unhealthy obsession with the young man, but as far as Deidara knew, that had all been transferred to the Uchiha's little brother, according to Kisame's random gossip at the base. Maybe Orochimaru wanted to study Deidara's Kekkei Genkai, or maybe his Kinjutsu, and was trying to get to his head like this?

He sat in the dark for what felt like another hour, mulling over what he'd seen. Then the sky lightened again. This time, there was a somewhat linear feel to it all, but the plot, if it could be called that, was more like a dream than anything else. It was still fuzzy, and it made his head hurt a little, but it was there. Something about Kisame being a shark, catching a unicorn that looked and acted like Hidan, and Kakuzu was a princess in a tower… Deidara himself was even there, as a constantly-angry fairy only a few inches tall and frequently using his magic to make things explode rather than turn into flowers or something ridiculous like all the other fairies. There was less emotion behind these scenes, less images as well, and what little emotion there was happened to be mostly either amusement or bemusement.

The 'story' ended abruptly, ending what little there was that would have tied up the plot of the show, and the entire… plane? Room? Whatever it was, it shook horrendously, enough to make him fall to the ground, seeing as he couldn't access his chakra for some reason.

Deidara cursed as a large amount of pain suddenly came to him. It was detached, though. It didn't hurt, it just felt like it should, and for some reason, he knew exactly how much it would hurt had he actually felt it.

He suddenly felt things, heard things, smelt things, tasted them. They were like the pain. Detached, as if his body knew that these weren't his own sensations, but felt it anyways. Maybe this was what mind-reading would be like… If it was, he wasn't sure he liked it. It was strange. It was too much.

He sat down and closed his eyes, entering what could probably be considered a meditative position. No way would he try going through whatever was coming while standing. The weird scenes had been enough of a sensory load, and this, from what he could feel, could quickly become sensory overload. It was still fuzzy, but quickly and steadily getting clearer.

He could hear things… birds chirped somewhere to his left, though nothing existed there, while the shuffling noises of something large came from his right. He could smell something a little floral, along with some wood smoke, and maybe some sweat. There was a sensation of lying down covered in thin blankets, in a humid and warm atmosphere. It wreaked havoc on his sense of balance enough that he was grateful for having sat down; he definitely would have fallen over if he'd tried to 'feel' while standing up, or at least stumbled into a wall. There was a taste of morning mouth, _ugh_, along with something that may have been the taste of dango consumed a number of hours earlier.

There was also the feel of a chakra system, but it was weaker than his. Finer control, certainly, he could feel that, but much weaker.

He felt eyes sliding open, looking around with murky vision; it was probably a part of the fuzz factor again. He was sure it would clear up soon. He felt himself, or whoever he 'was,' looking around, and there was a sense of resignation, of tiredness, of pain, of irritation that all washed over Deidara at the same time. Several flashes of the earlier dream appeared as back-thoughts, bringing a tiny sliver of amusement, but they were quickly shoved away. The eyes kept looking straight out, and Deidara felt the body that he was… _inhabiting_ sit up, gracefully sliding the blankets away.

The body certainly was graceful, more graceful than Deidara's. Still, there was a sense of weakness that suffused it, particularly in the torso, where the pain mostly resided. The strength itself wasn't much higher or lower than his own, but the body itself seemed far more… brittle.

Deidara was, to put it simply, feeling a little overwhelmed. With every feeling, every sight, there was a connected emotion, or the impression of a word or a hazy glimpse of a memory that flashed for a fraction of a second and disappeared. There was also the disorienting effect of having no control, which was even worse than the one time he'd asked Sasori what people felt when a puppet master took control of them.

There was barely any room for his own thoughts. He tried to distance himself from what he was seeing and feeling, but it didn't work. He opened his eyes, hoping that an alternate input would drive out what he was seeing. It just made things worse, and all he got was an eyeful of several dilapidated houses before he shut his eyes again. He let himself go, telling himself that it would be easier if he just accepted the information and thought about it later, when the darkness came again.

Everything that just happened, everything after the abrupt end of the dream, for that is what it must have been, had taken place in no more than five seconds.

He felt 'his' hands moving, rubbing away sleep from the eyes. They grew no less fuzzy, looking to the ground, half-closed, while getting out of the bed. The hands were, from what Deidara could catch from watching, pale and had painted nails; it was too smudged for him to be able to tell what color it was, just that it was dark. The body was slimmer than his own, probably taller…

The body stood up, walking towards a fuzzy rectangle, probably the door. The view didn't change the way Deidara had expected it to. He'd thought that this person might just be nearsighted, but it seemed that they just had bad eyesight at all distances.

He tried very hard to ignore what happened next, feeling extremely uncomfortable. Oh well, at least there was no need to be jealous. The difference in size was negli—no! Don't look! Ignore it, Deidara, ignore! That is none of your business!

Ahem.

In any case, whoever it was finished with their morning business, the teeth brushing, hair brushing—nice long and black, but somehow better cared for than Deidara could imagine with Orochimaru—and face washing. The person, whoever they were, had spoken not a word the whole time. There was, at most, some exasperated sighs.

The thoughts were oddly subdued as well, it was probably just the monotony of the morning routine, because most of the thoughts that Deidara 'felt' were of a faded nature, regarding fairly mundane things. The thoughts had eventually just settled into the main thought train of a song that had often been on the radio recently, and side thoughts regarding the motions of the body and the feelings from the hands, which were slim and rather feminine, and the scents and more were flittering in and out, dismissed as inconsequential. There was a distinct lack of worded thoughts, something that made the thoughts being thrust into his head both harder and easier for Deidara to understand. Harder, because he had a harder time classifying them in their own twisted way. Easier, because the thoughts weren't 'bound by mere words' or some claptrap, and so were easier to understand in their entirety.

It would have made his head hurt, if it weren't for the fact that he was fairly certain he didn't _have_ an actual head, just a mental representation of one and… okay, that was confusing too.

The body sighed, walking out of the room, and down what appeared to be a hall in an inn, though the bad vision kept Deidara from being certain.

_Kisame_… the one word flashed through his head, along with some colors, light blue, black, red, white bandages. A mocking chuckle, irritation at being teased, but a sense of friendship and affection, subdued. Fatigue, a late night? Something about a fire…

A hand reached up, knocked on the door. _109_… the number on the door, _107…_ the number on the door they'd left, with a vague sense of recognition and a feeling that meant the numbers would be dismissed as useless soon.

"I'm coming!"

Impatience, quickly stamped down, replaced with a meditative calm. Eyes closed, giving Deidara respite, but they opened less than a second later with a burst of chakra that he didn't recognize, directed right towards the eyes.

Deidara didn't have enough time to think, but if he had, he'd be panicking right now at the conclusion he would have come to.

The eyes, when they opened, could suddenly see clearly, _too_ clearly. Every tiny indent in the wood of the door stood out, and there was even a large smudge on the door, bright blue, very bright. It got larger, probably closer, and the door opened.

Kisame stood there, and the body was looking up at him. He was grinning, while the body wasn't showing emotion, the back-thoughts indicating something about how not feeling a need to show emotion.

"Hey, Itachi. You ready to go? I need a few more minutes."

"Hn. We will be leaving at seven."

"Sure thing."

No one heard Deidara's scream.

**o.o.o.o.o**

**A/N: I decided to finally post all the stories that I've been considering writing but have never gotten around to. Which one I continue quickest will be a determined by both my own interest in the story, and the number (and QUALITY) of reviews. The chance of one of these stories dying isn't high, but they will definitely be slow, so if you really want to see one continued, leave a review, one more than just a line or two long. The other story so far that I've posted that falls under this labeling is A Child's Fantasy.**

**Ooh, what did Orochimaru do? Was it even on purpose?**

**Well, I'll say right now that Oro-chan didn't achieve his objective. I won't say anything else.**


	2. Meet Me

**A/N: Yay, plot and twists! I won't be quite as focused on the mental exploration after the first chapter/prologue, whatever you want to call it, but it's still going to be a huge part of the story.**

o.o.o.o.o

"NO!"

Deidara continued to shout mindlessly for several minutes, his anger and denial strong enough to even shove away the blasted sensations still coming from Itachi.

"No, _no, __**no, NO, **__**NO**__**!**_"

Deidara's hatred for Itachi was immense. He had _never_ wanted to join any organization after defecting from Iwa. Crime was alright. He even found it fun sometimes. But organized crime was not, no matter how small the organization was. He didn't enjoy taking orders. He could take a job, maybe even a few, from the same person, but working _under_ someone… the thought made his stomach turn.

And it was Itachi's fault that he had had to do just that for the past several years.

Now he was _stuck in Itachi's head_ with _no way out_, and he probably couldn't get out, either. He couldn't sense his own chakra. He obviously had no _idea_ what Orochimaru had done to put him here. He didn't know why he was trapped. He just…

Argh! And now there were more ideas and sensations and thoughts and sights and things, _things, __**things**_ coming from Itachi and, and…

He couldn't think anymore. His anger was spent, and he no longer had the focus to keep Itachi's mind away from his own.

The first thing he felt again was the pain.

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara had taken to sitting at the edge of the box he was inexplicably, inescapably trapped in, back to the wall. His eyes were closed, and his face marred into an ugly frown. He couldn't really focus, because as soon as he tried to think, the influence from Itachi overrode him.

It was like… like trying to sing a song while the radio was blasting a different one. The radio couldn't hear you, nor did it care for changing the tempo or key of the song it was playing. You could hear the radio, however, and the key that it was in threw you off; the tempo made you try to speed up; the words of the song it played only served to confuse your own lyrics.

He eventually resigned himself to just mindlessly floating along to the tune of Itachi. He seethed in anger about not being able to ignore it at all. He was better than this!

Then there was a call on the rings. Both Itachi and Kisame found an out of the way place and created the holograms in the meeting cave.

Deidara paid as much attention as he could to what Itachi was seeing, because he couldn't take even a second to himself look at the things that interested him. It was an especially irritating aspect of this whole thing (the other irritating aspects being… all of them), as every time he forgot himself and tried to look at something else, he had to deal with the fact that he could only look in the direction of whatever Itachi was looking at. Deidara wanted to at least _glance_ at Sasori… Itachi's eyes never wavered from Leader.

"Listen, can we just move the f*** on?" Hidan complained, drawing what few conversations (two) that were going on in the cavern to a halt.

Pein stared at him for several seconds, and then turned to Sasori, who was actually there physically, though in Hiruko, as were Pein, Konan, and even Zetsu.

"There was an incident with Orochimaru yesterday." Sasori stated. "At one point, he got behind Deidara in his blind spot, and used a technique that I am unfamiliar with."

"So? What happened to blondie?" Deidara frowned from where he… existed. Still, it wasn't like Hidan was any more polite to anyone else…

"I was getting to that." Sasori sounded irritated. "He's unconscious, but I'm going to make a preemptive diagnosis and call it a coma. I tried to do a medical technique to wake him up, since there didn't seem to be anything actually keeping him unconscious after I healed all his wounds and checked for poison, but there was something blocking it… the brat is alive, and by all standards, he's _healthy_, but…"

"But?" Konan's eyes were narrowed.

"I think his soul is gone."

Silence.

"What?" Kisame breathed, eyes wide and making his normally small pupils seem almost nonexistent.

Deidara frowned, but couldn't find it in himself to panic yet. They knew what was wrong; someone would probably be able to figure out how to get him back; his body was, by all accounts, fine, and his soul, while not exactly in the most desirable of places, was whole and safe.

"It still _exists_, somewhere." Sasori growled, "But it's not in his body for some reason, and I don't know how to get it back. I tried several diagnostic techniques to check. By all accounts, he _should_ be dead, but for some reason, he isn't. He isn't dead, but his soul is _definitely_ gone."

Images flashed in Itachi's head, a number of people with pastel eyes without pupils, one man in particular with long, pale blonde hair and blue eyes. An impression of a deep voice, and respect borne of previous interactions, floated along with them, and the slightest twitch of facial muscles indicated the—very, very small—beginnings of a frown, showing the slight strains of displeasure running through the memories.

"In which case the technique resembles that of a Yamanaka." Itachi spoke in his custom monotone, but Deidara _felt_ the effort that Itachi actually put into keeping his voice so low, even, and emotionless. It was especially impressive as, halfway through his sentence, a line of fire burned a line through the man's spine and lit up his lungs, urging him to cough. Itachi showed no outward sign of it, not even a twitch. Deidara let out a yelp, but he wasn't nearly as surprised as he had been the first time this had happened. This was the seventh.

"The Konoha clan focused on interrogation?" Kakuzu asked. All eyes were focused on Itachi, who showed no discomfort at their gazes.

But Deidara felt that discomfort. The way people looked at him, especially within Akatsuki, was very different from how people looked at Itachi.

"Yes. Their most basic techniques consist of projecting their souls out of their bodies and possessing an opponent, while teammates keep their unconscious body under guard." Images of a forest and a teenager that looked to be asleep in the middle of a battle flashed through Itachi's head.

"You think Deidara might be possessing someone, and simply hasn't contacted us yet?" Pein kept his gaze focused on Itachi, to a level where Deidara began to feel uncomfortable and irrationally fear that he was staring through Itachi and right at him.

"No." Itachi's voice was clipped. "Deidara is not a Yamanaka, or of any other clan that has such techniques. He has not had such training as to assert his will over the person whose body he is inhabiting, and may not even be aware. If he is… there is a chance he may eventually figure out, but I believe that that would take much more time than we have at our disposal." The thoughts made Deidara frown, but he couldn't get _angry_ at Itachi without feeling like an idiot. The man's train of thought, the process he went through to reach that claim, were laid out too clearly for Deidara to refute it, especially since he _was_ trapped in someone's mind and had no control.

"So…what're you saying we should do?" Hidan actually looked a little interested, Deidara noted, though he was surprised to note that a small corner of Itachi's mind did as well before the though was pushed away as exceedingly irrelevant. Itachi mulled over the question, and Deidara had trouble keeping up with the lightning fast images, words, and impressions that made up the dozen or so plans that Itachi cycled through before returning to the first, and settling there. The thoughts were focused on one face in particular, one that Deidara thought looked remarkably like his own for some reason. The impressions behind it (_young, weak, easily impressionable, well-versed in clan techniques, daughter of the clan head)_ left no question as to why the girl was at the forefront of Itachi's mind.

"I suppose that I am suggesting… that we kidnap a Yamanaka."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: I kind of wanted to go further, but this is as good a place as any to stop, and better than most of those. So… yes, they're kidnapping Ino. To help save Deidara. Who is trapped in Itachi's head. With no way out. Fun, huh?**

**To be honest, I actually hadn't planned on involving Ino, or any Konoha nin, really. But the opportunity presented itself, and was just too perfect, not to mention that I couldn't steer it out of that direction if I tried. After all, "The story writes itself. The author just puts it down on paper."**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix.**


	3. Clear Up

**A/N: I can never concentrate when I'm writing this story. My train of mind just wanders so much in the process… maybe it's because that's such a large part of what the story focuses on?**

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara couldn't sleep.

It wasn't that he didn't want to. It wasn't that he was feeling like an insomniac. It wasn't that he was thinking too much and couldn't clear his mind.

It was that he was literally incapable of sleeping.

Deidara found it almost calming, now that Itachi was asleep again. Deidara could see Itachi's dreams, but it wasn't as intense, as overwhelming as the older man's day-to-day thoughts. The dreams were detached, vague… and Deidara could ignore them in favor of his own thoughts.

The process of watching someone fall asleep from the inside was a strange one. A person didn't generally remember falling asleep, only a growing sense of being less aware of the world around them, and then waking up the morning after, sometimes with a dream or two lingering at the back of their mind. The actual moment of falling asleep was impossible to pinpoint in memory unless one fell asleep in a split second from exhaustion or a drug.

It was a strange process, Deidara thought. He had spent the entire day being pushed and pulled in whichever direction Itachi's thoughts took him. And then, when Itachi finally lay down in bed, the thoughts had _cleared_. It was a little like meditation—a practice that Deidara had precious little patience and attention for—in that Itachi slowly just wiped his mind of all thought and feeling. And then Deidara realized that this wasn't Itachi's _doing_… it was a natural process as he fell asleep. The thoughts didn't just end… they slowed, and then seemed to almost float away as the dregs of sleep came back after their morning leave and grew over the mind.

Deidara felt as though a weight was taken off his shoulders as Itachi fell asleep. He slowly came back, back into control of his own thoughts. He got up off of the 'ground' and moved to crack his neck and stretch, to do whatever it was that he needed to do after lying on the 'ground' all that time, but found that it was unnecessary. Maybe it just wasn't a problem when he was nothing but a mental representation.

He looked around, noting that it was still rather dark. So Itachi hadn't started dreaming yet. That was… interesting.

Would he stay in Itachi's head forever? Not in the idea that he would end up back home, but in the sense that his soul may randomly transfer to a different body in the middle of the night. What if he just suddenly found that the person waking up was Hidan instead of Itachi? Or Sasori? Or… actually, it seemed that Itachi was probably one of the better people to have ended up inhabiting. Most of Akatsuki seemed rather insane—Deidara had a sneaking suspicion that he would have ended up hearing voices if he'd ended up in Zetsu or Hidan—and…

His train of thought had changed too quickly. He should have been able to focus on the problem at hand, figure out if he would 'transfer' or stay. But to do that, he had to figure out what his entrapment consisted of in the first place. Like… what was the box made of?

Deidara crept over to the faintly glowing wall of the box. It was supposedly translucent, judging by what he had seen earlier, but at the moment that could only be seen at the bottom, where hints of tamped down ground with only a few hints of grass could be just barely seen.

He started to pace around the box, slowly, looking for a crack or thin spot. The box didn't show any weak points, however, appearing to be completely uniform and flawless.

How boring.

Deidara tried closing his eyes and seeing if he could sense anything from it. He didn't have chakra of his own, and there was _nothing_ to be sensed from the box itself. Cursing, he began to pace around the box, full of frenetic energy.

His own thoughts were like wasps. There were levels of thought to Itachi that Deidara didn't enjoy experiencing, for a reason beyond them being Itachi's; some of the thoughts gave him headaches from the complexity. Deidara could name dozens of explosive chemicals off the top of his head, exactly how each atom bonded in them, and just which ones to use in which quantities to get the largest explosion with a set budget and circumstances. That, however, was a different from of complexity from genjutsu, particularly Itachi's kind, and the several hours that the Uchiha had spent ruminating on a new technique had left Deidara's head spinning… or would have, if he had had time to actually try to gather his thoughts.

Eventually, the world outside the cage, for Deidara could think of no better word for the 'box' in question, began to lighten. Another dream, then, though Deidara chose to ignore it, now that he could.

He caught flashes of color occasionally, through the corner of his eye, though the dream appeared to be primarily in black and white, like an old television set, grainy and unfocused. Though, he thought absently at one point, it seemed to be better than the lack of perception that Itachi strangely had.

And that thought dragged him away from his own situation and on to that of his… comrade.

Itachi was obviously sick, definitely in great pain. Something with the lungs, of course, and most of the body, but Deidara could _tell_ that it was mostly the lungs. Itachi hadn't thought on it much, yet, only a few peripheral thoughts of weariness and comparisons on the severity to past days. The same had gone for his eyes, and strange thoughts regarding his clan that… didn't… feel…

He felt guilty.

Deidara realized this with a jolt. Deidara himself wasn't very used to feeling guilt, and was happier that way. He was a bit of a hedonist, he knew, but as and S-rank criminal, he wasn't _expected_ to care about other people, particularly not when the people he should be close to, like the other members of Akatsuki, weren't his associates by choice. In any case, Deidara had finally identified the feeling that had confused him so much.

Guilt.

Itachi felt guilty about killing his clan.

Itachi was sick and probably dying.

Itachi was going blind.

And from what Deidara could tell, not even Kisame knew.

What the h*** was going on?

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: I am on a **_**roll**_** this week! In any case, here's your shiny new chapter of undiluted ****Mind Screw****. I wonder if your heads hurt the way mine does?**


	4. Fear Me

She was… normal.

That was Deidara's only real thought on Yamanaka Ino.

The girl was surprisingly normal. The only thing about her that really differentiated her from other kunoichi was probably the lack of pupils. And the rack. Most teen girls didn't have that kind of chest.

Of course, Deidara didn't have much time to think on the girl, seeing as Itachi was _awake_ and currently trying to either "convince" the girl to help Deidara or decide on whether or not using his Sharingan to tear apart her mind and dig out the techniques was worth the moral dilemma.

Later, when he had time to think on it, Deidara would find the thoughts curious in the same manner as he did the guilt over the massacre.

Eventually, Konan came and told Itachi to leave so that she could try her own hand at convincing the young Konoha kunoichi to help.

Itachi was very… introspective, Deidara found. He _still_ couldn't seem to figure out what was the truth behind the massacre (though he told himself that he'd have it figured out by the time he got out, if only so that he had a goal in this to keep him somewhat sane), and it was only made worse by the fact that Itachi never seemed to forget about it. It made Deidara's head hurt, in a roundabout sort of way, that he constantly felt that niggling thought in the back of Itachi's head. The guilt was always there. It was _annoying_.

A piercing scream hit Itachi's ears, which Deidara had learned were extremely sensitive due to having to compensate for Itachi's near-dead sight without the Sharingan.

Itachi stilled, dozens of thoughts running through his head at a speed which left Deidara groaning in exasperation, and then turned and strode to the room where Konan and the young Yamanaka heir were.

"Konan? What appears to be the trouble? I was under the impression that we were not to torture her."

Konan looked up from Ino, who was on the ground and clutching her head, crying, bawling.

"I simply showed her a memory in a genjutsu. I believe I was overly heavy handed, however, as more of my emotions and reactions from the experience were included than I planned."

Itachi nodded, not asking what the memory involved. However, his thoughts were instead racing along tracks for what the memory could have been. If the girl's mental stability had been compromised, then Deidara's health could be as well.

Deidara felt sick (sort of, considering he was just a… mental representation of himself? Ugh, this was so confusing) from the options that Itachi considered as possibilities for the memory that Konan had employed. They ranged from morbid to downright disgusting, and Deidara couldn't even fault Itachi for thinking them because they were unfortunate but very real occurrences in the world. Of course, Deidara didn't think that many of the things Itachi considered could have actually happened to Konan and still have her end up as she had today, but it was still a matter of principle to consider them at all. Besides, it wasn't as though Itachi actually believed the theories he was coming up with, after all. He just considered them because it was better to consider everything.

o.o.o.o.o

Itachi meditated fairly often, and it was a strange experience for Deidara.

The "world" grew blanker, and calm. The first time Itachi had meditated, Deidara had realized that this was the only way he would ever actually see what Itachi's head was like. When Itachi slept, the world was either too dark to see or portraying the dream. When Itachi was awake, the sensory input was just too much to even try to look around. But when Itachi meditated…

The lighting was white, clinical, and harsh. It covered everything, and "everything" happened to look like a small village, the Uchiha compound from Itachi's garbled memories. The strange thing was that the "village" itself was not clean. It was bloody, and there was a small canal full of thick red liquid bubbling along. Deidara was in the one clear spot, in his little box-cage, the one spot where the hardened ground wasn't covered in blood.

Deidara had a theory, actually, that the blood was the representation of Itachi's guilt. Whenever Itachi spent a longer time than normal time thinking about the Uchiha Massacre, or about his brother, or if he killed someone on a mission… there was more. It moved more slowly, dissipated at a slower rate. The blood would disappear, yes, but it went slowly, and it was never completely gone.

That was why Itachi meditated in the first place.

The most interesting thing to Deidara, though, wasn't the strange creation that was Itachi's mind, but the fact that Itachi himself appeared… and was completely oblivious to Deidara's presence. It wasn't as though Deidara purposely tried to make himself difficult to see. He was in a huge, empty box in the middle of a clearing, a box that was _glowing purple_. Deidara was the most visible thing possible, like Frank N. Furter or Mr. Two Bon Kurei in the middle of a Westboro Baptist Church meeting. And he was banging on the "walls," screaming his head off for Itachi to notice him and _get him out_.

And yet Itachi, on the few times that he opened his eyes when he was in his own mind, seemed to look right through Deidara. It was as though Deidara didn't exist to him, and Deidara couldn't figure out why.

o.o.o.o.o

He didn't want to believe it.

Deidara wasn't stupid. He may act like a dumb blond on occasion to mess with people, but he wasn't _stupid_. He could piece things together easily, but….

Well, he was also rather prone to deluding himself and entering into denial.

It was a good thing, in this case, that he _couldn't_ deny the things that he wanted to.

Itachi cared about Deidara, in his own strange way, and Deidara couldn't convince himself that it was a lie. He _felt_ Itachi's worry. He _heard_ Itachi planning ways to deal with him once he woke up. He _saw_ Itachi pull up the covers or do something else that would help and, and, and…

It was just too much. He couldn't help but tell that Itachi cared, and he _hated_ it.

How the h*** was he supposed to hate Itachi when he could feel that Itachi cared, cared for the only Akatsuki member younger than him.

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara was curious when he learned that Itachi would be watching Ino's first attempt at finding out what was wrong. The girl looked ragged and worse for the wear, miserable really. Itachi was partially there to keep a watch on her, as was Sasori, and make sure she didn't try to pull a suicide technique, and take Deidara with her.

Ino glared at everyone in the room, but it was weak and she flinched when Sasori moved.

She didn't speak as she turned to Deidara's prone body, slowly going through a few hand seals, disgust marring her admittedly rather pretty face.

Deidara was more focused on the fact that seeing himself lie there was just so strange. His body was paler than it had been, and he seemed to be losing mass, which was to be expected under the circumstances.

"Shintenshin no Jutsu." Ino whispered, and then collapsed.

Itachi caught her as she fell, his mind pulling up images of prior incidences working with a Yamanaka. He knew the jutsu, and Deidara could sort of feel the information behind it. It was only a few fleeting glimpses and impressions, but it was enough to understand that she would be possessing Deidara's body, or at least trying to.

Itachi laid her down carefully, not wanting to give her a concussion, given what her job during her time there was.

Deidara was subject to the strange sight of watching his own body move without his influence.

Ino, possessing Deidara, slowly blinked Deidara's eyes open, not moving otherwise. After several seconds, Deidara's body was up in a sitting position, a vaguely disgusted look on his face. There were crackling noises as Ino took the initiative to stretch the body out and get into a more comfortable position (Deidara noted with distaste that Ino seemed to be particularly wary of his hands), and then close the eyes and, supposedly, focus.

Fifteen minutes later, the tension in Deidara's body dissipated, leaving it looking strangely lifeless, Ino's frown still marring his face.

Over on the other bed, Ino woke up, repeating the process of stretching out the kinks in her too-still body.

"Well?" Sasori demanded.

Ino shot him a dirty look and huffed. "You were right; the mind is gone, and the soul might be too. I shouldn't have been able to take control as easily as I did, or hold it that long."

"We already knew that." Sasori growled, standing up with a hand hovering over a scroll on his belt.

Ino clenched her jaw. "No, you didn't. You _assumed. I_ can actually know for sure." She got off the bed that Itachi had laid her on, still glaring at Sasori. "And unlike you, I can figure out where the soul actually_ went_, given enough time."

"You don't—"

"How many times do you think a younger clan member has to be found after messing up the jutsu their first time using it? How different do you think it is?" Ino seethed. "I'm not happy about having to do this, but if I have to, then you are going to treat me like I'm actually worth something to this operation. I'll do the job, and if you think for one second that I'll put up with being treated like I don't know what I'm doing, then I'll have to ask you to leave before you end up making the situation worse. The mind is a delicate thing, and you're not exactly helping your partner by pushing me around like an Academy student."

Sasori did not look happy. Deidara tried to ignore Itachi's thoughts on the subject, and just focus on the standoff in front of them.

"…How long will it take you?" Sasori finally asked, clearly unhappy with having to do so.

"Two months, tops. He's not a Yamanaka, so it will be more difficult to find him, not to mention that the method of exit was extremely different, but I can do it." Ino flipped her hair back over her shoulder and crossed her arms, and for a second, just a second, there seemed to be a gleam of pride in her eyes that hadn't been there since she'd arrived at the base. "Getting him back will happen after I find him, but it still won't take more than two months altogether."

"You better not waste my time." Sasori shouldered his way past her and out of the room.

Deidara let his mind stop resisting and just drifted along to Itachi's thoughts once more.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: This story is shaping up strangely, but I like it. It's actually going to take Ino less than two months to get it done, but she's overestimating for safety.**

**I'm not going to transcript things that aren't actually important to Deidara's mental state here, and Ino's kidnapping is included in the "unimportant" area.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


End file.
